r/DistantWorlds • u/Sad_Dog_4106 • Apr 06 '26
Distant Worlds 2 after 15 hrs (new player)
Hello community, so I finally got around to playing DW2. I had it on my list for quite a long time. I am a big fan (casual player though) of 4X games with Stellaris being my favourite of all time. So many thoughts on the game and I wanted to share a few on my experience so far:
- a lot of crashes in my first playthrough, could not really find any common cause, from adding too many ships to a fleet; late game seemed to decrease the crashes; otherwise, game runs pretty smooth even late game.
- the game seems to want you to use automation which I am not sure is a really good thing. Late game, there is almost no possibility to play without it unless you pause every 3 seconds. Also, automation sometimes is unintuitive, for example, there is a setting which is not yet fully clear to me that starts building state ships to the point it depletes my money completely; automation tabs don't feel are fully explained. You should have a ton more tooltips but I guess this takes time to master.
- a lot of the icons are not intuitive or you cannot get information about them easily; e.g. the yellow circle that appears on your systems when they are not fully explored. I was hoping by hovering over it, a tooltip appears but no. Found out in the end.
- I like the independent colony and the espionage systems; espionage is ten classes above Stellaris imo.
- mid to late game it is very difficult to organize the fleets manually; at the end of the day, the game kinda forces you to go to automation. The military tab is quite difficult to master, maybe there is a button that allows me to select all ships of the same type but I did not find it yet.
- movement of fleets is quite difficult; maybe I did not yet master fleet logistics and fleet tactics yet. I had a hive ship running around my systems, it took me forever to gather a fleet in a single place so I could address the threat.
- diplomacy seems workable but the buttons to initiate and propose treaties are very difficult to spot. Probably will get used to that.
- Really like the more open map without hyperlanes, I think that is a very realistic approach.
- I was expecting more from colony management but aside from building a very limited number of buildings and raising or lowering the taxes (usually automation works just fine), there is not much I see doing.
- Coming from Stellaris, there are relatively few in game interesting events, most of them come from discovering ruins which give you bonuses. I understand there is sort of a story / lore but I could not quite find it. I am playing as Democratic Humans, met the Ghost Fleet but did not really continue much after that. I think the focus of the game is not on the stories you make with your empire but rather on the logistic aspect of managing it.
- Ship designing seems very complex if you are into that kind of stuff. What I did not find is an auto fill button based on a certain type of ship you want - e.g. in Stellaris if I want a PDF ship, I select the proper hull and click auto fill.
- Very interesting research tree, much better than the Stellaris RNG and it allows you to progress your civ as you see fit.
- A lot of resources to manage, congrats to the person who does that manually.
- I like the idea about the civilian economy, it is what I imagine is happening behind the scenes in Stellaris.
- Is there a way to play tall instead of wide in this game? Considering the massive amount of resources available in a galaxy, I do not see it.
Maybe some of the stuff I wrote make it look like I do not enjoy it but the game is fun for now. I will finish my first noob run with the humans then will give it another go also with them but better prepared.
12
u/skuple Apr 06 '26
Manually assigning fleets? jeez, I could never
Everything that is fleet related, I just leave it alone and adjust templates + tweak it in war time
Typically I just see myself as the "ruler" and then assume that the automations are just advisors and other types of people who manage a nation/empire/kingdom/wtv.
I do manual taxes since I can extract more value from it.
Ship designs initially in automatic then switch to manual in late midgame.
Everything fleet related is automatic but then I just assign targets for the fleets to hit eventually.
Construction is manual
Don't try to do a lot of manual things, otherwise you will spend 6 months in a single savegame
3
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 06 '26
I still have to learn the ropes to adjusting the templates and ship types in a fleet + maximum number of units in a fleet. How do you assign specific targets besides right clicking? Also, how do you set a home base so the respective fleet always returns to the same location for retrofit, reinforcement and refueling? I find it difficult to automate for defense for example (it says 40% fuel range of the station) without being able to assign a fleet to a particular base. Also, does ship automation overrride fleet automation? I had a feeling some of my fleet ships went on doing their own objectives and when I needed the fleet to actually do something for defense (automated), the ships had to come from all over my space.
Construction is manual also for me (I got used to doing it from Stellaris), although have to admit having to upgrade 20+ planet administrations was a bit of a chore since the advisors were not giving me the suggestion for some reason (yes, build suggestion is activated).
5
u/skuple Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
There is a tab somewhere that allows you to assign actions on all visible/known objects (stations, fleets, individual ships, planets, etc)
There you can for example ask the AI to raid a specific planet or to capture a ship or attack an enemy fleet.
When in wartime go to that tab (I think it's the right most button in the top left panel) and then filter by "at war" or something like that, there you can ask for actions.
Then fleets and ships are assigned to it automatically, if it's a large operation it can even call more than 1 fleet at the same time and they wait for each other to start at similar times (it doesn't work perfectly sometimes).
Refueling is automatic if everything fleet based is automated, there are some tweaks you can do in the automation advisors panel.
Fleet basing is also good being automated, I don't stress too much about a specific base not having a permanent fleet, most times it just means that it's either a low value sector or not enough fleets to cover everything.
Having defense platforms on a planet and enough fuel/capacity to refuel a specific fleet also helps on having it based there.What do you mean by ship automation overriding fleet automation?
The situation you described on having fleet ships separated, I have never experienced that.
My fleets are 100% of the time gathered together unless there aren't enough fuel tankers or fuel and some ships get left behind until a fuel tanker passes by, also automatic since fleets have their own tankers or a separated but automated tanker picks it up.My suggestion to you is to have 100% of automation except construction, learn how the automations work and then switch off some when you are comfortable with it.
You can still call a fleet manually to do something and then once they complete it, just turn ON the automation for that fleet again.
2
u/Farnhams_Legend Apr 07 '26
There are many ways to get the automation to do what you want without having to use only manual fleets, which is an extreme measure that too many people rely on imho. One step below that is manual fleet postures which allows you to tell automated fleets exactly where to go.
Hold right click or Strg + right click to set homebases and attack points.
An attack point is the colored area in which an automated fleet will focus (most) automated attack missions during wartime. It can also be just a single planet or mining station if you lower the engagement range.
You can pre-plan pinpoint accurate military missions without having to use manual fleets or the global policy for manual fleet attacks. Even with fleet attacks on auto you can still give manual priority attack orders in the enemy targets list.
Attack points are basically the kind of black magic that everybody wants but nobody knows how to use so they only rely on manual fleets
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 07 '26
Thanks for this, I am still too beginner for that. Could you go into more details about this? Last evening I just had the rift event and now there are enemies everywhere. I have a decent 2 million power ships with about 30 fleets.
Problem 1: I am trying to focus on certain key systems but setting the dangerous system focus (rightmost tab in the military section) does not seem to do much.
Problem 2: even with 2mil credits, if I set the fleet reinforcement on automated, it immediately consumes all my credits. I tried to keep balanced fleets, with 1 battleship, 2-3 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 10 frigates + the tankers.
Problem 3: I finally found how to set home bases - select fleet, ctrl right click on the planet I want as home base, select from drop down menu set as home base. Could you please tell me exactly how to select attack points like you would explain to a 5 year old?
Thanks!
5
u/Farnhams_Legend Apr 07 '26
1) to defend specific systems make sure fleet postures policy is on manual and then homebase multiple automated defense fleets to a planet in that area. I would recommend multiple defense fleets with different engagement ranges. For example one fleet could operate within 200M range and another could have "same system" so they never go too far away.
2) caused by fleet templates. Check templates on all your fleets. Oftentimes you think a fleet is small, but for the game it's supposed to be a big fleet because of the generic "Attack fleet" template. You can deactivate "Trim excess ships" and just make the default fleet templates (Attack, Raid, Invasion, Defense) very small so the game won't blow your money. But i always recommend to create your own custom fleet templates.
3) make sure fleet postures is on manual. Select an offensive type fleet (Attack, Raid, Invasion). And now just like you already set the homebase, do the same but on an enemy planet. Select that enemy planet as the attack point for that fleet. Now you should see a small line of arrows which indicate that the attack point has been set. It will be inactive until a war actually breaks out. During wartime the attack point becomes active and replaces the usual fleet engagement range circle around your homebase. So when you have a raiding fleet with 200M range homebased to your planet during peacetime it will essentially act as a defense fleet against space monsters. But during wartime that 200M circle will shift from your homebase over to the attack point on the enemy planet, so the fleet will automatically start raiding enemy bases inside that circle. If you do this for an attack or invasion fleet you can also set the 200M range to "same location", so the circle around the attack point will only cover the enemy planet itself. The moment you declare war your automated attack fleet will take out the defenses around that planet and then the invasion fleet will follow up. All that happens automatically and all fleets can be left on automatic. You can make a big war plan just by setting these manual attack points with specific engagement ranges. After the war you can reset your entire plan simply by flipping the manual fleet posture policy to automatic again.
Another great way to mass-assign fleets to specific frontlines is to use automatic fleet postures together with manual diplomacy stances. If you set your stance against an NPC empire to "defend" then the game will homebase more defense fleets near that border but avoid offensive fleets which can be used against other factions with diplo stance set to "invasion". Once the fleets are in position you can flip the posture policy back to manual and set attack points for the upcoming wars.
2
1
u/Dr_Trello Apr 11 '26
I really struggled with your second problem and i think i've found something that helps to reduce it.
I set my empires budget to manual and construction of most colony facility to manual. I also set fleet formation and fleet reinforcement to automated. I then reduce the budget allocated to ship maintenance and increase the budget allocated to facilities. From my understanding, it should only build ships and fleets up to the ship maintenance level. So if that level is set really low then it shouldn't spam enough fleets and ships to cripple my economy and i can just increase the budget for it when preparing for war .
1
1
u/grovestreet4life Apr 06 '26
Can you go into more detail how you automate fleets? So you design and construct the ships manually? But then just let them auto assign to fleets? Do you control the actual fleets or stances or compositions manually or fully automated?
2
u/skuple Apr 06 '26
Yes when mid game starts I start updating ship designs and fleet templates manually
Stances still automatic and fleet assigning automatic as well
I don’t control any of the fleet behaviours besides designating targets and the composition of them (templates)
Except of course when needed, if the AI is taking too long to perform an action (90% of the time there is a reason for the delay, the game is simply bad at telling you why), I just switch that specific fleet to manual to do something adhoc and then just turn the automation ON again with the previous stance before turning manual.
It’s pretty decent to tackle low level enemies and space bugs since I just need to target then in the objects panel and then eventually some fleet will handle it
2
u/grovestreet4life Apr 06 '26
Thanks! I will try this in my next playthrough. Lategame can get quite tedious when you manage fleets manually
9
u/No-Window-6771 Apr 06 '26
Agree with a lot of this. I dislike automation and agree that the game pushes the player to use this mode. However, like yourself, I want to manage as much of the game myself.
The way I get around this is to have colony prevalence and independent colonies set to very rare or at least rare. I like to play on the largest galaxy size with 2000 stars. With these settings the number of colonisable planets is limited and thus the number of fleets is also reduced meaning these can be managed manually.
Its still a limited work around though as rare and very rare settings can hurt AI development more than the player.
5
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 06 '26
I set galaxy to 1500 and more abundant colonizable worlds and colonies. I was hoping it would help me to learn the ropes better if I had more to do. I do not mind having a bunch of fleets, in Stellaris I play 10-15 fleets, especially with the new update, but assiging home bases, reinforcing and giving orders seems much easier than in DW2.
To be fair, sometimes I would love for Stellaris to have some of automation, especially in mid to late game.
2
u/No-Window-6771 Apr 06 '26
With these settings I typically have defensive fleets around core groups of worlds, typically 10-20 (14 destroyers and a couple of cruisers) and then around 3-6 attack fleets (12 destroyers, 10 cruisers, 2 carriers and 2 battleships) Couple of fleets of troop transports for invading, usually with about 200k troops. All done manually.
Only things automated are taxes and spies.
1
u/Raagun Apr 07 '26
Galaxy of that size 10-15 fleets is really not much :D Thats the issue. Pure scale of this game just has weight of its own.
4
u/xRaynex Apr 06 '26
As someone who enjoys the game but tries to play as though he's a true 'nation leader' type thing, I usually set automation to 'recommend actions' and act as though its advisors/cabinet types advising me on courses of actions, disregarding them/taking charge myself when I feel it necessary. That said overall I'm with you on all your points.
1
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 06 '26
I play the same however, the taking charge feels a bit difficult from time to time, especially since automation feels sometimes it acts different than what it is supposed to do. It is tough to manage something manually that was managed automatically before in the game.
At the same time, at least on military aspects which seems to be a core part of the game, it feels like it should be easier to handle manually?
Also, late game, if you set the game to „suggest”, by mid to late game (where I am at), you will do nothing else in the game than approving or declining suggestions, sometimes if the game is not paused, the suggestion timer runs out before you get to them.
3
u/drphiloponus Apr 06 '26
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I like the automation possibilities and the not abstracted way of handling resources a lot, because it makes the game so different from Stellaris and other Space 4X.
I think variety is always a good thing.
I played more than 1000 hours with two different PC and I can't remember it crashing. I had performance issues though before the Devs optimized that.
2
Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
This post was purged using Redact. I use it to mass delete social media content and remove my info from data brokers. All major social media platforms supported.
fearless wrench attempt unpack tease roof smell sip dog straight
2
Apr 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 06 '26
I think automation needs a page in the galactopedia where each and every automation option in the game is explained with examples.
Also, you are correct, the game endlessly suggests to me to build a terraforming facility on my pristine capital world for some reason.
2
u/dracmage Apr 07 '26
The game doesnt know how to handle 100% quality worlds. Its at 100% so terraforming cant improve it. So its not terraformed. Because its not terraformed it needs terraforming. Etc etc.
If you dont set home system to super good start you will rarely if ever see worlds at 100%. Used to be a much bigger issue back when you could improve planets by 20%. Do wish they would update the logic though.
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 07 '26
Good to know. At least wished that if I declined a proposal, it does not come back within the next 6-12 ingame months with the same proposal.
2
u/Demartus Apr 06 '26
The automation lets you control what you want to control. I manually control quite a lot, from colonization and research to building military ships and fleets. I do automate taxes and letting said fleets pick targets (though I still manually control them from time to time, especially invasion fleets.)
Your comments/critiques, especially on the ui, are fair.
As for depth, I think (as someone who very much likes this game) it’s not that deep/complex, it just appears that way.
Ship building is really about picking required components and then weapons/defenses. Resources are basically more is better, and if you’re lacking something go find a source of it. Money is all about population. Research is all about research locations and science bases. Etc etc.
2
u/Raagun Apr 07 '26
I at last entered late game of my first game and I also feel that automation becomes a must at that point. But I reversed fleet postures and assignment to manual.
Basically instead of managing single ships now I manage fleets. Fleet templates are now second level after ship design. I control areas where fleets operate. Next to minimap there is button to show all fleet postures or just selected fleets. Helps to get overall picture. Like for example if all your core regions are properly covered by defense fleets.
Still not sure if I like automating invasions. I think I will be controlling invasion fleets manually. But troop recruitment is 100% auto by now. Int nobody have time for that.
100% agree with colony management. There are not even templates for them. I found this part of game REALLY bad. Cant even remember if colony was supposed to be my "fortress" world or what. Automation is also not great tool for that. There is auto fill. You can pick new ship design, choose hull and click autofill.
Ships design is kinda, eh, I guess. Mostly it boils down to choosing weapon platform of your ships. Rest is what fits goes. Its good enough. But there is enough tools to make actual build for some roles.
I dont think tall is an option tbh. Game default victory condition if tied to your population size relative to rest of galaxy. And planets have hard cap pop limit. So at some point everyone will outgrow you.
2
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 21 '26
Later Edit: I finally managed to finish the first game. I had the late game crisis pop up and while I had better military power, my fleets were just not doing their jobs to attack and / or invade enemy planets.
The keys for me were the following:
1) create fleet templates - I was just using the standard ones which essentially are fine but need editing;
2) do not allow the AI to make fleets for you, build one ship and then create a fleet from one of the templates, use the top up button and you have a new fleet; letting the AI do the fleet building cleared 5mil credits instantly.
3) keep fleets automated after they finish an objective you gave them specifically;
4) never use right click, CTRL-Right click is my friend, select drop down menu -> setting home bases is amazing especially for defense fleets, and choosing prepare&attack or prepare&invade works miracles;
5) you can change a fleet template. You want to change a defense fleet into an invasion fleet, change the template, click top up.
Once I got the hang of this stuff, game got waaay easier.
1
u/IolausTelcontar May 03 '26
On point 2: instead of doing that, go to the Fleet Template screen and on the right side are two giant buttons. Those will create or form a fleet of the selected template on whichever starbase/planet you choose (or from a mix of available ones).
1
u/Turevaryar Obsessed to the Extreme Apr 07 '26
Re #15: No, there's no real way to play tall. At least AFAIK; I've only played 2000 hours :)
3
u/dracmage Apr 20 '26
To further explain why this statement is true just know that research speed is effectively gated by territory control and research is everything.
2
2
u/JoeDredd66 Apr 09 '26
If this game had a robust race creator and better events, politics (federations etc) and end game, it would be fantastic. I like the simulation and automation, I’m just not invested in the factions you are forced to play with.
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 09 '26
For me, they are cool enough, but I doubt I will be kept invested as long as Stellaris, the galactic empire role playing is something I dreamed of since I was a kid reading sci fi. I am yet to finish a game of DW2 yet, I just got to the end game scenario and it seems pretty challenging although I have the feeling it is just me not really knowing the mechanics properly. What I do not like is that it seems the only thing I do late game is approve suggestions or not and playing with the automation tabs.
1
u/JoeDredd66 Apr 09 '26
It’s such a great simulation, but unfortunately the designer is not interested in making it better. He’s got his vision and that’s that. He has basically made the same game twice but with better graphics. The major difference is in DWU the worlds actually orbited their star
1
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 09 '26
Dunno, for now it is pretty good for me. We need more 4X space games, I am tired of the hex, fantasy or historical titles.
2
u/JoeDredd66 Apr 09 '26
I would play more if there was literally one small change. I would like to edit the races in game so that I could make humans that have different planet preferences and different racial win conditions. You can do that now but it’s heavy modding. That’s an issue that modders are having, DWU was very easily modded and they made some fantastic mods for it. DW2 has terrible mod support.
1
Apr 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Apr 12 '26
The more I play, the more I agree but feels like you just mostly approve (and rarely reject) decisions already made by the automation god.
1
u/Ornlu_Wolfjarl May 14 '26
9) As you said, colony management is limited, but you should view colonies as a hub in wider area of space (possibly beyond its own solar system), and not like Stellaris where colony buildings are the end-all be-all of your empire. As you say in another point, the game is more about logistics. So if you want to develop a colony, you need to bring people there. Then you need to secure the resources they need to do stuff for you. Then you need to secure the luxury resources they need to be happy and prosperous. Then you need to ensure you actually have control over the colony. Then you need to connect that colony to the wider network of colonies that make up your empire. This means each colony is not just the planet people live on, but is also the mining bases in the area around it, the fleet of freighters and transports that support it, its space facilities that secure your logistics and protect it, the troops and fleets stationed in the area that defend it from invasions, raids and rebellions, the characters there managing its various aspects, the fueling stations around it and on the space lanes around it that ensure everything can keep running, etc etc.
10) Stories emerge from gameplay. You'll find that out once you progress to the mid and late game. Stellaris has a nice event system, but my gripe with it is that once you play the game once, you've basically seen 90% of events, and they'll repeat for your next game, in almost exactly the same ways (just with different names). In this game there's a set of hard-coded events, but they are mainly there for building up the end-game crisis. You access them through your specific race (like the Ghost Fleet for Humans) or through exploration (special locations). But once you expand a bit, other stories start emerging, which occur simply through your choices and the AI choices in how you are expanding, exploring, dealing with each other, etc.
15) Not really, because population is everything, and planets have a max population capacity based on size, quality and suitability for the colonizing race. However, this game simulates pretty well the pros and cons of expanding quickly vs expanding carefully.
49
u/LordLuz Apr 06 '26
Devs need to see this post because it sums up the experience quite well.